Various different types of coverings exist for placement in architectural openings, such as windows, doors, archways and the like. Such coverings include blinds and shades. Many shades, for instance, comprise a fabric covering that is placed in an architectural opening and includes a headrail assembly that not only mounts the shade within the opening, but also provides a control mechanism for raising and lowering the shade as desired. For instance, the control mechanism may comprise a drawstring or an electric motor.
Some shade assemblies include rollers that are rotatably mounted, usually in a horizontal orientation, across the top of the architectural opening. A shade material, such as a roller sheet, is attached to the roller. Rotating the roller in one direction causes the shade to extend in order to cover the architectural opening and rotating the roller in an opposite direction causes the shade to retract so as to reveal the architectural opening.
Shade assemblies that include a rotating roller, often referred to as roller shades, are very popular with consumers. Roller shades, for instance, are easy to operate and are very compact, especially when the shade is in a fully retracted position. However, the roller sheet used for roller shades often derives from a large roll of sheet material having a particular width. Specifically, the sheet material is unwound from the roll to a desired length and then cut to create the roller sheet. The resulting roller sheet may then be used for a roller shade designed to cover an architectural opening having a width that is the same as the width of the original roll of material or less than the width of the original roll of material (which then requires the sheet to be trimmed to the desired width). Unfortunately, width limitations for rolled sheet materials provide a design constraint for manufacturing roller shades with increased widths. Moreover, the use of standard, rolled sheet materials significantly limits the ability of the manufacturer to customize roller sheets based on desired aesthetics and/or lighting effects.
Accordingly, improved methods for manufacturing roller sheets for use within roller shades that provide the manufacturer increased options for customizing the width, aesthetics and/or lighting effects associated with a roller sheet would be welcomed in the technology.